


The Limitations Of Magic

by Sixthlight



Series: Happy Families [3]
Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Multi, Parenthood, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 11:10:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11356290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/pseuds/Sixthlight
Summary: Parenting: expectations versus reality.





	The Limitations Of Magic

After a few minutes talking to my aunt Doreen I noticed a suspicious absence of a small but demanding voice in my immediate vicinity. Laura wasn’t with my mum, or with Bev, who was chatting away to Abigail about something I either would hear a great deal about or never wanted to know about. I caught Bev’s eye and she immediately pointed me towards the back of the house, so that meant I didn’t need to panic.

Even though it was only about three in the afternoon, she’d fallen asleep on Nightingale, who was bearing her weight with great patience.

“Here, let me,” I said.

“She might wake up,” Nightingale said darkly. I considered this, and decided he was right. We sat there for another minute or two.

“You know,” I said eventually, “every minute I spend as a parent, I wonder more and more how my mother managed. She had one and a half adults per child on a good day.”

“And we have three, and it still seems like a challenge?”

“Basically.” I glanced over at him. Nightingale was usually a lot cagier about the extent of his parental involvement; I’d never figured out whether it was out of politeness, Edwardian rectitude, or just plain uncertainty.

“Well,” he said. “We’ll be back down to your mother’s ratio in June or thereabouts, so I suppose you can reassess it then.”

“I mean, it wasn’t really like that,” I said. “She had friends and cousins and all of that.”

“There’s a difference between being able to help and being responsible. I suspect responsibility is what you’re thinking of.”

“I guess it is. Did you ever see yourself…being responsible for kids?”

“As a parent?” he said. “No. Never. It wasn’t ever something I…there was only really one way that happened, when I was young, and I wasn’t going to…it wasn’t ever something I felt I’d missed. That is to say – I certainly had plenty of younger relatives, and I liked seeing them, but…”

“They could always be returned?”

“Quite.” He smiled. “And now, this one, I can hand her over, but that’s not the same thing.”

“I always thought I’d have kids one day,” I said. “But I thought…I was going to meet a girl and get married and we’d get a place somewhere, if we could afford anywhere in London, anyway, and have two and a half children and it was going to be a _normal_ family and then I’d be happy.”

“You’re on track for most of those,” he said. “Depending upon how you count the half a child.”

“I’d say I’m on track for all of them,” I said. “Plus a few things I hadn’t thought of then. I just had a very limited definition of normal at eleven years old.”

“Everybody does,” he said. “I think _I_ thought I’d be getting married someday at that age. When I thought about the future at all. And then rather a lot of things happened.”

Meaning, of course, the first World War, almost simultaneous with him going off to Casterbrook and setting foot on the path that would lead him to being the most talented wizard of his generation in Britain, probably in Europe, and on further to a snowy mountainside in Germany and the end of his personal world. And then, much later still, to me.

“Beverley says she thought she’d go to university and then maybe travel a bit and then meet somebody she wanted to settle down with when she was old and she’d had a chance to have some fun first. Which mean about thirty, to hear her tell it,” I said. “And then, and I quote her, ‘you had the fucking temerity to knock on Mum’s door when I was eighteen and not even properly dressed and somehow here we are’. Which, by the way, I find it fascinating that Bev thought thirty was old when she knew at least a dozen people who’d put a century or two away by that age, but the point is that here we all are, anyway.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling. “You asked me once if magic could let you see the future; there’s some hard evidence for you that it absolutely doesn’t.”

“Oh, well,” I said, and kissed him.

And then Laura woke up and the moment was lost, but: that’s parenting for you.


End file.
